SNEAK PEEK

Months ago I posted about model company Industria Mechanika creating a model kit based on my Dystopic piece. Well after a couple hiccups in production (me and Gene, the modeler, moving to Victoria and a redesign of the base), here are a couple sneak peeks of the final master sculpt of the figure. This highly detailed kit will be 1/6th scale, and be composed of resin and metal parts.

Gene Campbell did a great job modelling the kit, enhancing it with his own touches and adding a subtle texture pass to the figure. Gene has modeled my work in the past, as we worked together at Next Level Games, and we currently work together at Microsoft in Victoria.

As mentioned above the original base of this model (seen in the original Dystopic piece), had to be discarded, as it pushed production costs and shipping costs (due to size and weight), to excessive levels. The new base not only keeps the cost of the kit within reason, but the use of an orb reinforces the design of the series. It also has the benefit of mirroring the base design of the next kit, "The Star", so the two kits will complement each other on the shelf!

Industria Mechanika is in the process of putting the kit together for production and figuring out packaging etc.. The final product should be ready for release in late summer/early fall of 2012.

Thanks again to Gene for his awesome job, and to FichtenFoo and Industria Mechanika for setting the whole thing up!

SKAFANDR - GLAZ

Last year Russian Dub-Metal band Skafandr licensed one of my pieces for the cover of their new album "Glaz". The album has finally seen the light of day, being released last week. The piece used, "Destrudo", was modified slightly with the hexagram on the helmet being replaced with Skafandr's cosmonaut logo.

Skafandr sent me a copy of the album a while back and it is pretty solid. I like some heavier instrumental music like Godspeed you Black Emperor, Pelican and Red Sparrows. This has a more of a Dub influence, a bit more of a groove to it. There are some great tracks and it is worth a listen.

Thanks to Kirill and the rest of the band for the opportunity!  

VORY V ZAKONE

This is a series of pieces created for Endeavor's new High 5 snowboard for the 2012/2013 season. Max Jenke at Endeavor set the direction for this one, asking me to look into Russian prison tattoos. I started with a few great online resources, found a couple books and watched Alix Lambert's "Mark of Cain", and Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises". As I dug through the material I became fascinated by the rich language of the tattoos and became interested in a shadowy group known as the Vory V Zakone. Vory V Zakone, Russian for "Thieves in Law", is a title bestowed upon respected and high ranking criminals that follow a strict set of rules known as the "Thieves Code". The Vory V Zakone came into being in the early Soviet period as a ruling group within the swelling prison population of the gulags, and went on to become a highly influential part of the world of Russian organized crime.

The central aspect of these pieces are the tattoos. Inmates in Russian prisons use a detailed set of tattoos to indicate their position or rank within the prison hierarchy and the criminal underworld. These detailed pieces of art, often created using primitive, hobbled together equipment, are steeped in symbolism and meaning. For example a rose indicates that the wearer went to prison as an adolescent, while a tattoo of Mary with the baby Jesus represents that the individual was born a criminal. 

Each board graphic is centered around a specific tattoo. The 157 is "BARDAK", Russian for "whorehouse" and used in prison parlance to mean "this is what is killing us", and features a collage of vices: drugs, alcohol, women, violence etc. On the 155 the focus is an orthodox crucifix tattooed on the chest which means "Prince of Thieves" and that the individual is a high ranking Vor. 

These tattoos are displayed on figures that are also adorned with secondary tattoos and have their identities hidden. Behind and below the figures are collages of weapons, Russian icons, maps and symbols that relate to the essence of the meaning of that particular tattoo and speak to the criminal/prison theme of the series.

Originally I had intended to keep these pieces grey scale or with subtle blue wash in an attempt to capture the look and feel of the wonderful period photographs of Russian prison inmates and their tattoos that I had been using for reference. But due to marketing and product differentiation reasons Endeavor requested that the boards be coloured. I've always been a fan on Russian aviation camouflage so I used the colours from those patterns as a starting point and massaged them further. 

For the base graphic we used the letters of "Endeavor" encased in the frames of Russian prison ring tattoos across the fingers. The same base graphic is used across all the boards in the series, just coloured to match each individual top sheet. 

Below are few pages from the 2012/2013 Endeavor catalogue featuring the production versions of the boards, tech specs. etc..

These boards are currently being promoted along with the new Endeavor line (including some more great work from Rory Doyle) on the trade show circuit and should be available late summer/early fall 2012.

Thanks to Max, Rob and Jason at Endeavor for their input and support. Catalogue images courtesy of Endeavor Snowboard Design.

STRIPOLIS

Here is a pic of the piece I had published in the latest edition of Serbian comic anthology Stripolis. This independent publication is the brainchild of Serbian comic author and illustrator Branko Djukic and a small group of collaborators. Their goal is to revive the production of, and the interest in, the ailing Serbian comics industry. This is the third volume of Stripolis to be published.

When Branko asked if I would be interested in contributing a piece to be included in the book, I was eager to participate. I've had a first hand experience of the poor state of the Serbian comic industry. Last May several of my pieces were stolen, altered, and used on the cover of the leading Serbian comics publication Politkin Zabavnik.

Not only is the book full of nice work, but the intentions of the creators and collaborators are commendable. Copies of Stripolis #3 can be ordered through the Stripolis website.

Thanks again to Branko Djukic for inviting me to contribute to Stripolis #3. 

NEXT LEVEL GAMES

Well, after 9 great years the time has finally come to move on from Next Level Games. My time there was amazing. I had a blast while working on 7 shipped game projects (plus one that is about to wrap up), 7 demo projects, and countless game design pitches. Over the years I also had the opportunity to heavily contribute to the company branding and identity. I learned a lot, and grew not only as an artist, but as a person as well. While the work and the growth were great, the best thing about Next Level has always been the people. They were the ones that made coming to work everyday so enjoyable and rewarding. I've worked with some of these people since the beginning of the company, and others before that at the original Blackbox Games studio. Several of my good friends from animation school work there, along with my good friend Nigel, who I've been sharing my artistic path with since we were 10 years old. So they will all be missed, and walking out of that studio for the last time on Friday is going to be tough.  But it is time for a change.

I'm going to be moving back to Victoria and taking a position as a concept artist at the new Microsoft studio there. I have a couple personal reasons for moving back to Vic. as well, but this is an exciting opportunity. There will be some familiar faces as several ex-Next Level people are working there, along with a few I know from the Blackbox days.

As there will be a lot going on in the next few months, moving and getting settled, things here will be slow, but hopefully I'll find time to work on, and post some new stuff.

As for Next Level I wish them the best of luck. Not that they need it, I'm confident anything they do in the future is going to be great. Cheers guys, and thanks for all the good times!

INSOLENT MOCKERY OF THE DIVINE UNDER CENTRIST RULE

Here is one that I picked away at over the holidays. As with other pieces in this series, this one was inspired by one of the deriding slogans painted on the walls at the Entartete Kunst exhibit in 1938. Room One of the exhibit was reserved for works of a religious nature, featuring works by Max Beckman, Wilhelm Heckrott, Karl Schimidt-Rottluff, along with a large selection of work by Emil Nolde. The title, "Insolent Mockery of the Divine Under Centrist Rule" was scrawled on the wall featuring Nolde's massive nine panel alter piece "Das Leben Christi" (1911/12). This slogan, invoking the nazi concept of Judeo-Bolshevism, is a simultaneous indictment of the art and the church.

Ever since I read those words, and from the beginning of this project I've wanted to tackle this image, but I was a little hesitant given the religious content. I'm somewhat of a spiritual person, but not a religious one. That being said, when it comes to religion, I'm sensitive to, and respectful of other peoples beliefs. I tried to represent the Christ-like figure, with all that that entails, without turning it into a caricature or parody. How successful I was will be for others to judge.....

Although most of the titles of the images in this series are displayed in German, I felt this particular title was more powerful in English. The German phrase "Unter Der Herrschaft Des Zentrums Frecher Verhohnung Des Gotterlebens" seemed to be lacking the impact of  "Insolent Mockery of the Divine Under Centrist Rule" (probably solely due to the fact that I am English speaking....). Plus that title in German is so long I had a hard time fitting it on the image!

Enjoy!

Higher rez. and a few more details on my Flickr.

SCHWARZ AUF WEISS

Here are a few pics of the piece I contributed to the art book: Schwarz auf Weiss Vol. 2. The book was published last fall but I received my copy over the holidays and I only just got around to taking a few shots now.

As the title suggests, and as I mentioned in a previous post, this book is a celebration of black and white art.

The book is full of solid work from contributors like Alexis Marcou, Nook, Bayo, Aro, Pavel Ripley, Luke Painter, and Carolin Morin just to name a few. The book is very well put together, featuring a minimalist design that emphasizes the artwork, embossed hard cover, and nice paper stock.

Thanks to Christian Schupp and SNNC for inviting me to be part of the book!

Schwarz auf Weiss Vol. 2 was published by From Here To Fame Publishing and is available from Amazon, etc. etc.

Well worth checking out.

SPECTRUM 18

 

 

Here are a few pics of the two pieces of mine that were published in the latest edition of Spectrum. I was pretty pleased that my Dystopic piece was printed on a full page, and the other piece, A.R.A.R.I.T.A., seemed to hold up on the half page size.

This edition is quite large, and features some amazing work, including a nice cover piece by Jean-Sebastien Rossbach, and another banger from Fearless. Definitely worth checking out.

THE STAR (emperor)

This new one was created as a design for a possible 2nd model kit for Michael Fichtenmayer's Industria Mechanika. The first kit, based on my Dystopic (ventilate) piece is currently in the master modelling stage and hopefully I'll have some progress images to post soon!

As the 28th piece is this series this one was inspired by the 28th path on the the Tree of Life, "the ruler". The colours are from the four worlds, and the tertiary graphic elements speak to correspondences of this path. The title comes from the tarot association, The Star. In divination the meanings of this card are hope, guidance and future possibilities, represented here by the female cosmonaut curled in a fetal position. Her fixed gaze tells us she has the determination to grasp one of these possibilities and to reach her chosen future potential.

The subtitle "the emperor", while possibly reinforcing the title of the 28th path, is more of a nod to Crowley, who proclaimed that Tzaddi was not The Star, and that the true Hebrew letter for this path was Heh, a letter more traditionally associated with Path 15 and the Emperor.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

ADVANCED PHOTOSHOP

Here are a few pics of a spread I had in Advanced Photoshop #88 last month. My EK piece "Drifting" was chosen to be featured in one of the "How I Made" sections of the magazine. These are 2 page features that describe the piece, the artist and outline a particular Photoshop technique, or effect used during the creation of the image. As I don't use any Photoshop effects, I had to try and outline my painting process in 3 steps!

The rest of the magazine is full of great digital art, articles and a 6 page feature on Maciej Kuciara. The magazine also comes with a CD full of brushes, tutorials and other media.

Thanks to Adam Smith at Advanced Photoshop/Imagine Publishing for inviting me to be part of the issue.

BLOOOM

Here are a few pictures of the work I exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show that was held in Cologne, Germany over the last few days.

ARTISHOX finished my prints off with Dibond/Diasec. I had never heard of this process before. It involves fusing a piece of acrylic glass to the print, and mounting it on a aluminium and plastic plate. Apparently the colours are more brilliant and the image is sharper than framing behind standard glass. Anyways, I was happy with the end result and thought they looked great.

I had the honor of exhibiting with other ARTISHOX artists Michihiro Matsuoka, Esther Barend and Philip Bosmans.

Huge thanks to Ben Wouters for putting everything together, hauling everything to Cologne, and for curating the booth!

More pictures here.

ARTISHOPIX

ARTISHOPIX, the online shop/gallery of the ARTISHOX Gallery, is up and running. A whole bunch of my limited edition Entartete Kunst fine art prints are available on the site.

The shop also offers the wonderful sculptural works of Michihiro Matsuoka and paintings and fine art prints by Philip Bosmans and Esther Barend. The work of additional ARTISHOX artists should be appearing on the site soon.

Check it out here.

THE PASSAGE

Finally a new EK Piece.....it has been awhile since the last one back in June. I had a busy summer, and finding time for personal work proved difficult with several vacations, a kitchen reno, another set of boards for Endeavor, and spending a lot of time with the kids. As we settle into fall I plan on having a little more time for my own work.

The sketch that this one grew up around was started back when I was working on the piece for Rooms Uncovered Magazine, and shares the same two panel layout. The title, The Passage, along with the birth like imagery of the main panel, and the altered or evolved state of the right hand panel (here represented by the colour shift and time passage), speaks to the changes that have occurred within us, or that we feel have occurred, when we emerge from an experience.

Having emerged from a forced break from my own work, along with other recent events related to these pieces, I feel I have a new perspective of where I want to take this series.

High res. and details at my Flickr.

BLOOOM

I'll be exhibiting some pieces at the Blooom Creative Industries Art Show in Cologne, Germany later this month. My work will be exhibited at the ARTISHOX Gallery booth, along with work by other artists the gallery represents.

This is a large show, with a host of galleries and artists exhibiting their works. The show is also running in conjunction with ART.FAIR, so there will be lots to see and experience.

The show runs from October 29th till November 1st, 2011 at Staatenhaus AM Rheinpark, Cologne, Germany.

If you are in the area, go check it out.